Season 5
by bhut
Summary: My version of season 5. Connor and Abby are still working things out, Matt is still missing Jess, and Lester's political superior is planning her next move. And the time anomalies aren't relenting either...
1. Chapter 1

**Episode 5x01**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The shopping mall was busy as usual on a workday afternoon. The customers scurried to and fro, carrying out their usual activities: shopping like the majority of the visitors, or playing in the arcade (and eating fast food) as the birthday party in one of the corners of the mall in question was doing, or just lounging about as a group of older teens were doing, as they observed the setting-up of a stage of some charity event. It was a regular Wednesday afternoon, nothing seemed out of ordinary, when a sphere of shimmering, tinged, chromatic light suddenly appeared out of the blue, twinkling over the fountain.

In addition, it should be said that it was a massive fountain, which produced some rather impressive water plumes. As such, the shimmering sphere actually remained unnoticed for several long moments, until someone's pet puppy began to bark at it.

"Mommy, what is that?" the puppy's owner (looking barely older and scarcely bigger than the mini-mutt itself) asked curiously, pointing at the ball of light. "It's so sparkly!"

"I don't know, dear," the child's mother replied, thoughtful. "Must be a trick of the light, or perhaps a promotion of those new 3-D images that your brother has heard about. Either way, it looks rather impressive!"

The last sentence was heard by several other people who were passing by, but stopped to look at what was the excitement. Very quickly, they noticed the new development, and while some just took a brief look and went on, others took their time, either just looking and admiring the new mall attraction, or recording it on their cell phones, planning to send the pictures to their friends and family...

The crowd grew, the whispers and muffled discussions grew with it, and so, nobody was able to notice when the first batch of sea scorpions began to pour through. But once they were in the present, it didn't take long for the screaming to begin.

Meanwhile...

"Becker, uh, how are you doing?" Jess Parker said quietly, as the usually taciturn soldier just sat there, looking even less talkative than usual. "Is it because of Quinn? Well, both of them, really?"

"No," Becker replied, reluctantly. "It's not. I just like having peace and quiet here instead. It's so nice, so orderly – it is quite neat, really!"

Jess blinked. "You like peace and quiet? Why did you join the army, then?"

Becker shrugged. "It was either that or the jail, actually."

"Wha-?" Jess's mouth opened wide, making her look a bit like a fish. "Becker? Pardon?"

"Yes," Becker nodded thoughtfully. "That's why I never talked about my past. This sort of a reaction is really annoying. So how about you, Jess? Why did you embrace your career the way you did?"

"Um," Jess said slowly, "well-" She didn't finish. Abby Maitland came over to them, and she looked really despondent.

"Hey, what are you talking about?" she said, sounding much more depressed than the usual. "Connor called. He and Burton are at some conference, so he's not to be bothered for at least next couple of hours or so."

"And Matt?"

"In Emily's old room, he... they... I don't know," Abby leaned backwards in her seat. "Just a few days ago, we were talking to Jenny, and she was getting married, and everything seemed to be looking up, the hyenadon invasion notwithstanding. Now, Emily's gone, Danny's gone again... oh, Matt wants to talk to us about him, i.e. Danny, but first, I don't know..." Abby trailed away.

Jess and Becker exchanged looks. "Speaking of being gone," Jess said in an uncertain tone of voice, "I forgot to tell you – Lorraine has called."

"Yes? And?"

"She's sick with flu or something," Jess elaborated. "She's been absent since yesterday evening, as a matter of fact; Lester has already been notified, of course, but I forgot to tell you in all of the excitement..."

"Well, fair enough," Abby exchanged a look with Becker. "Lorraine is a good friend of ours, and we really should send her a get well card. What do you think?"

"Don't see why not, as long as it gets approved by Lester – he is in charge of all the finances," Becker replied, perhaps a bit predictably.

"Of course," Jess and Abby exchanged eye rolls. "Becker, sometimes your attitude is almost cute, but other times it's just exasperating. Still, I doubt that Lester will raise much of a fuss if we promise to pay for Lorraine's flowers by ourselves-"

"No argument from me," Becker shrugged, as he walked over to the communications system and pressed a button that connected to Lester's speaker phone. "Mr. Lester, sir?"

"Becker, Parker, and everybody on this motley crew of an ARC," Lester's answering machine replied instead. "This is your Noah, I mean captain, James Lester speaking. After winning a cruise through the Mediterranean via lottery, I'll be absent for the next several weeks, leaving you in Burton's capable hands. Try not to act as utter morons in the meantime? Lester out. PS: Don't try to call me – I'm on vacation!"

There was a pause as the three listeners exchanged looks between themselves. "I didn't know Lester played lottery," Jess finally admitted.

"Hey, neither do I, not regularly, but on occasion I did spend an accidental pound or two," shrugged Abby. "So does Connor, for that matter."

"Hah," Becker said, thoughtfully. "Burton's on a conference with Connor, Lester's gone, and so's Lorraine. So, who's in charge for the time being? Anderson?"

"That's a reasonable question," Abby admitted. "Jess, call Matt to come over – he can mope about Emily later-"

The calls of the time anomaly alarm locating a time anomaly interrupted whatever Abby was going to say.

"Oh, crud."

The office stood large and dark, clearly dominated by the large desk that stood in its rear half. "Hello?" Connor spoke in a rather insecure tone of voice, as his second thoughts regarding getting into Burton's car grew steadily louder and louder.

"Hello to you too – Mr. Temple." The woman who got from behind the large desk was quite tall and thin, with a rather sharp nose and a pair of tinted glasses perched upon it. She was dressed in some rather well-tailored clothes, but the overall effect of a rather strict and stern schoolteacher wasn't diminished one bit.

"Hello," Connor repeated dully, as his hand was gripped and shaken emphatically. Some of his instincts were telling him to flee because there was something wrong, and that wrongness included that grip, but he ignored them – a usual trick when dealing with his common sense.

"My name," the woman continued, grinning slightly, "is Geraldine, but please, feel free to call me madam minister."

"Um, eep?"

Matt caught to Abby and Becker as they were going over to their van. "Sorry that I didn't get to speak to you earlier, I just, I don't know, have you ever thought at least once that the whole purpose of your life was a mistake?"

"Just what is it with everybody today?" Becker suddenly erupted. "First Jess, now you – is there something in the air that makes everyone want to strike a conversation out of the blue? Seriously, it's bad enough that yet another bleeping time anomaly has ruined all of the peace and quiet yet again, you just have to wax poetic as well? Can't you just get to the point and return to mourning Emily later?"

Matt blinked and looked at Abby. "I'm guessing that Ethan getting the best of you is behind this?" the blonde asked, carefully.

"Yes!" Becker eagerly took the bait. "I'm an army man, damn it! With an H&K sniper rifle, even AR-15, it all would've been over, we'd just have to wash his brains off the wall, end of story."

"Danny wouldn't have been happy," Abby said quietly.

"Yes? Well, the ARC wasn't built to make Danny happy!" Becker shot back. "Plus it is always possible that the rifle butt in the face that he took from Ethan, or Patrick, or whoever, would've helped him change his view, and if it didn't...well, I know my duties, I have had disagreements with teammates in the army, and sometimes I was wrong. Other times, however, I was right. Blowing Ethan's brains over the wall is a risk I would be willing to take." Becker shifted and faced Matt more directly. "Now, what was it that you were going to tell us?"

Matt opened his mouth and closed it. With Becker being openly hostile at the moment it was risky to confess that Danny told him not to trust Burton – for all that Matt knew, Becker might decide to be purposefully perverse and do something unpredictable instead.

And then, of course – though Matt didn't consciously realize it – was Matt's own attitude to Becker. The two men were close enough in age to be naturally competitive – not about anything in particular, but just because. Later on, by the time of the therocephalian invasion, Becker, grudgingly, submitted to Matt's leadership, but the fires of resentment were still there, no matter how small and smouldering. And Matt's own resentment reciprocated in kind.

Plus there was all of Matt's training – throughout the better part of his life, Gideon Anderson had trained his son to be self-dependent though not very social, ready to do everything by himself, dependant on no one. The idea that he had to work with Becker... chafed. And now, well... So, Philip Burton is not to be trusted? Good, Matt will keep an eye on him. And if this will prove to be another red herring, just Ethan proved to be, and then Matt will be spared another embarrassment as he had been before.

Nodding quietly to himself, Matt settled in into his car seat and kept for the rest of the ride.

"So, let me get this straight," the minister said thoughtfully. "The time anomaly problem is growing quickly and steadily into a genuine threat?"

"Exactly!" Connor explained, after exchanging a look with Burton. "In this, latest instance we had two time anomalies fusing into each other, and this development had not only created a lot of secondary time anomalies that were all interconnected, apparently, but also showed that our equipment needs a lot of updating. Eh, what I am trying to say, here, is that we're in a literal race against time – and time is winning. Is this clearer?"

"You're saying," the minister replied, just as thoughtfully, "that the new developments of the time anomalies may render the ARC obsolete?"

"It's a very distant possibility, but a real one all the same," Connor replied after some deliberation. "The fused time anomalies were still the same time anomalies that we've dealt with in the past, and so our equipment _is_ designed to deal with them... as it did in this instance. What worries us is the possible fallout the time anomalies could bring during their presence here."

"Sounds more like a matter of personnel than technology to me, then," the minister said, clearly thinking over Connor's words. "Is that what you're getting at?"

"Yes," Burton spoke up suddenly, after exchanging looks with Connor. "Connor's expertise is with technology, just as Jess Parker's is with computers and computer programming, and what we need is, probably, someone with a good knowledge of physics, as James Lester has pointed out."

"Physics," the minister said thoughtfully.

"Exactly. We don't know yet how the time anomalies exist, for a start," Connor said firmly. "We know that radio waves are involved, definitely, but how – that's the question."

"Very well, I'll think about it," the minister said, sitting once more behind her desk, clearly dismissing the two men. "Thank you for your time."

There was nothing left but to say good-bye and leave.

"Jess?" Abby's voice sounded less confident than the usual. "What's the data?"

"Let's see, it a shopping mall in the city's northern suburbs," Jess's voice came over the communications' link. "You'll be there in another fifteen to twenty minutes. There's only one time anomaly – I hope. Uh, everything is all right?"

"Yes, yes, we're fine," Abby replied in a voice that indicated that that wasn't so at all. "Matt and Becker are just being, you know, tense."

"Tense," Jess replied slowly. There was a sort of a not-quite-a-joke running in the ARC that if the tightly wound captain Becker would snap, then it wouldn't be pretty at all. Somehow, at this moment it no longer seemed to be a joke at all. "Right. Well, if anything – call me, immediately. Got it?"

"Yes," Abby replied, almost gratefully. "Got it."

By now, the mall appeared to be completely empty, devoid of people. The fountain was still pumping water into the air, and only a close inspection could tell that the water came not from it proper, but from the time anomaly instead – the mall was completely flooded. This didn't mesh well with various electronic appliances, devices and other man-made devices that were sold and used at the mall, so in several places there was a distinctive crackling of short circuiting electricity.

There was smoke too, coming mostly from the food court area, where the various cookers and burners, some of which had been initially on, and burning. Other sources of smoke came from above, where some of the potential electric fires were still burning.

The smell, however, was the worst. It could not be described, there were too many factors, too many sources contributing to it, both inorganic and not. Abby took one whiff and staggered backwards, feeling gloriously, stomach-wrenchingly sick. "What is this smell?" she managed to gasp between her heaves.

"Death," Matt replied curtly, remembering similar smells from his childhood in the faraway future. "Abby, I think you should stay here, as back-up, hmm?"

Becker opened his mouth, and then he changed his mind, as he clearly closed it and began to look into the stinking, darkened depths. "Jess?" he said slowly, as unwanted memories of his own began to resurface, "we don't see the time anomaly – do you have any better luck?"

"No," Jess's voice was grim, "not really. I have some plans of the mall, but right now their electronics don't work, there isn't much I can get into."

"Well, what info do you have? Please?" Becker softened his voice, remembering that Jess wasn't his subordinate, not really.

"Let's see. The mall is forty to fifty stores long and has 4 levels. There are several other establishments other than the stores per se. There are two fountains, one bigger, one smaller-"

"Well! That explains all the water," Abby spoke-up.

"Actually, it's sea water," Becker shook his head. "Smell the salt, if you will."

"Oh. So it's not just from the food court, then?" Abby tried to joke, but judging from the looks on the faces of both Matt and Becker, she wasn't doing a very good job on it. "All right. So, I'm guessing that we're dealing with sea animals?"

"What was your first clue? The strange-looking fish over there?" Becker pointed with his taser at the fish in question.

"What fish?" both Matt and Abby turned...just to see the fish getting snapped by something that was definitely not a vertebrate, but possessed way too many limbs instead.

"That's a sea scorpion, and it's big!" Abby exclaimed, sounding much more disgusted than the usual. "Bigger than Rex!"

"That's pretty big, all right," Becker admitted. "Jess, can you find out if this mall has any drainage systems, or pumps, or something?"

"On it," Jess's voice replied through the ear pieces. "Yes, they're there, but I cannot turn them on from here – I'll send you the details instead."

"Good. And keep trying to contact Connor – we could use another pair of hands here," Matt agreed. "Now. Is it just me, or first we seal the time anomaly and then we turn on the pumps?"

"No, that's pretty much it, I suppose," Becker admitted, thoughtfully eyeing the still-feeding sea scorpion instead. "Speaking of Connor, what does his dating calculator say?"

"Um, that it's about 490 – 443 MYA," Abby replied. "That's the Silurian, I think."

"The Ordovician, actually," Matt shook his head. "The Silurian came later. Well, enough stalling, let's go."

"Not so fast," Becker shook his head. "First I have to show you something." He cocked the barrel of his taser gun, aimed it at just some spot of water, and discharged a shot.

Abby and Matt blinked. "Shouldn't there be a discharge?" Abby said slowly. "Isn't that the whole principle of all those killer movies?"

"Only if the charge is grounded," Becker shook his head. "Here the water is deep enough for our shots not to be grounded, it's all in the angle of fire. We risk not only hitting ourselves, but also not hitting anything – if electricity won't get grounded, it'll scatter through the sea water instead-"

"Look!" Abby called out. "Look!"

A second sea scorpion had joined the first, and the two large invertebrates began to scout the area where Becker had fired his shot.

"They're sensing electricity," Abby said thoughtfully. "Well, bio-electricity – animals generate their own electric field: modern electric rays, eels, catfish, they sense that field and hunt animals in murky waters; modern sharks do too. Matt, Becker – I think we've got a strategy... but to make it work, we might need some objects, like, I don't know, carrots?"

"Carrots?"

"So. That was our boss," Connor said thoughtfully, as he and Burton departed from the ministry.

"James's boss," Philip corrected him, softly. "I'm in the private sector, remember? That said, well..." he trailed off, and finished, sounding thoughtful, "you may be onto something."

"Uh," Connor opened his mouth to say that he didn't say anything concrete, when his cell phone rang. "Jess? It's you?"

For the next several moments Connor just listened silently, and then he turned to Burton. "Philip? Abby and the others are dealing with a time anomaly in a flooded mall – can you give me a ride?"

"Hmm," Philip grew thoughtful. Frankly, he had no intention of ingratiating himself too closely to the ARC's field team, but on the other... well, he had plans regarding the Anomaly Research Center and Connor Temple in particular, so co-operation here was the key. "I think we can do something about this," he finally replied. "Tell me, Connor, do you get airsick?"

The waters in the mall just stood there silently, rippling only when a sea scorpion or a trilobite passed through them. "There aren't too many fish, are there?" Matt decided to make conversation, as he walked behind Becker and Abby, who periodically threw pieces of food into water and zapped them with the blasts of their tasers. The sea scorpions (and some of the trilobites) would immediately swarm in that direction, and gather around the food in a miniature feeding frenzy.

Matt, however, wasn't doing any of it – he was carrying the case with the device that would seal the time anomaly instead, and as such, he felt rather lessened. "You know?" he spoke, trying to lighten the mood, "the sea scorpions are tough, and the trilobites seem to have less common sense than a woodlouse, but the fish, I'm not sure, they seem to be acting strange."

"Well, they're jawless, so even with their bony armour they're hopelessly outcompeted by the invertebrates," Abby said thoughtfully, "but yes, you've got a point – they are acting strange, all of them."

"How?" Becker asked, slowly. "They're ancient bugs and primitive fish – how can they _not_ act strange? I mean, even your dinosaur sometimes acts strange as far as we're concerned-"

Zap!

"They're sticking to the shallows, even the fish," Abby explained, willingly. "I mean, yes, there're theories that the sea scorpions and the such came to land to breed, but here-"

"Well, it's not quite land here, is it? There's plenty of water – maybe they just think that it's a low tide or something," Becker shrugged. "All right, we're here. Connor- oh, I forgot."

"That's okay, I'm sure that he'll come on time," Matt said reassuringly, "Jess told us that she'll tell as soon as she'll can. Right, now to seal the time anomaly..."

For several short moments the trio stared at the time anomaly as it just hovered there, its' chromatic light reflecting off the water in the now-damaged fountain pool. And then, several tentacles burst from out of it. The tentacles were dark in colour, covered in ridges rather than suckers, and were very, very big – but otherwise they were identical to the tentacles of a squid or a cuttlefish.

"Back, Abby, back!" yelled Becker, as he fired several taser blasts at the new threat. It seemed to do little good – the tentacles apparently were too far away from the main brain of their owner, and when one of them actually grabbed the barrel of Becker's weapon, the metal creaked and groaned in its grasp.

"Matt, turn on your machine – we've got to seal the time anomaly or we're screwed!" Abby yelled over her own desperate shooting. "Now!"

It was at this moment that a shadow fell over the area in which the trio struggled with their prehistoric foe. "What the Hell?" Becker managed to say as he looked up and saw Connor Temple open the mall's skylight and began to fire at the tentacles as well. This wasn't another taser, however, as one, then another, and then several tranquilizer darts hit the tentacles' flesh, causing them to withdraw in a hurry back through the time anomaly.

"Now!" Matt shouted to no one in particular, and pressed the right sequence of buttons on the sealing device.

The time anomaly snapped shut, leaving the tentacled stranger safely back in its own time.

"So, I leave you guys for a matter of hours, and behold – you're tangling with a nautiloid," Connor said, in mock disapproval. "Talk about embarrassing!"

"Yes, well, that's how it goes," Becker muttered, looking at his taser. For an outdated ancestor of the squid, the nautiloid had had quite a grip: the weapon was bent and broken beyond repair. "So how did your meeting go?"

"...Remarkably ambiguous," Connor admitted, after a brief inner struggle. "She was helpful and listened to my suggestions, but she was also very, very scary and intimidating."

"Considering that she has to deal with the likes of Lester and Burton on a daily basis, it's not too surprising," suggested Abby.

"Maybe," Connor muttered, remembering his handshake with Ms. Geraldine – there was something wrong with it, there was something wrong with the woman in total, but now wasn't the time to dwell on it. "Anyways, once the back-up crew is done capturing all of the sea creatures, it will be time to release them back into the past, right?"

"Well, yes," Abby nodded. "Are we going to use the time anomaly at hand?"

"Not sure," Connor admitted. "I don't know much about the Palaeozoic, but I do remember that the nautiloids lived in deep, dark water, and thus sending all the sea scorpions and jawless fish directly there might be tricky."

"Well, we'll figure something out – right, Matt?" Abby pressed on.

"Yup," Matt agreed carefully, deep in his own thoughts. He wanted to suspect Philip Burton, he really did, but after the fiasco with Ethan Dombrowski (or Patrick Quinn, depending on one's version), he was no longer as eager to jump to judgement as before. His desire to succeed was still there, just as strong as before... but so was his determination to fix it by himself, or at least try to. And so... he said nothing.

...As the quartet emerged from the still waterlogged mall and looked around, and saw several crews of reporters crowding around the barrier erected earlier by Becker's underlings.

"I think," Matt spoke instead, "that maybe we need to hire a PR agent or someone for just such an emergency?"

The others just winced, but Connor noticed then someone else. "Isn't that Mr. Burton amongst them?" he asked suddenly. "What's he doing here? I thought that after he got me that helicopter ride, he drove back to the Center?"

"That's a good question," Abby's own eyes narrowed, as she tried to figure out the older man's angle. "I don't like this."

Yet whether they liked it or not, the four friends were about to be surprised by their boss...

The minister was staring quietly at the TV, her spectacled glance rigid and enigmatic. Finally, she seemed to have made a decision and dialled a number on one of her telephone sets. "Get ready, for soon it will be time to strike, Caracacon," she spoke into the receiver in French. "Soon the ARC and all of its secrets will be ours!"

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

**Intermission: Burning the midnight oil**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

It was quiet. It was dark. It was late evening, and Jess was still at her station, seemingly engrossed in whatever she was viewing on her screens.

"Jess!" Becker's exclamation was unexpected, to say the least. "What are you still doing here?"

"Becker," the computer expert whirled around. "You've startled me!"

"Sorry," the latter replied, not looking very apologetic, "I guess I was just... hey, what you are doing here?"

"Going over the security one last time," Becker shrugged, unabashed. "What with all of the prehistoric sea bugs still here, I felt that some caution was in order."

"That's unnecessary. I and Connor worked as quickly as we could!" Jess protested.

"I know, and I am grateful," Becker said, in a placating tone of voice. "Here, I got you some chocolate."

"Without any oranges?"

"Without any oranges."

"Forgiven, then," Jess said easily, as she chewed her treat. "Anyways, I'm staying here because Abby and Connor need some quality time, and-"

"And you don't?" Becker inquired, innocently.

For some reason Jess had a brief cough attack. "No, I'm fine, I'm fire," she finally said, "anyways, care to walk me home? Just imagine, um-"

"I'd rather not," Becker shook his head. "I don't have a very good imagination, and anyways I live in a different part of London than you, so it wouldn't work. Plus, I'll be probably staying here for a while still"

"Oh." Jess briefly thought of suggesting that the ARC had had bunks of their own, but quickly squashed that idea all the same. "Well, if you feel that way... Hey, why are you staying here so late?"

"Why not," Becker had no intention of telling Jess about his nightmares, both from his military days and his ARC career, so what he settled for instead was, "look, my bachelor flat... frankly, it's a lot less impressive than the local facilities, so I feel almost more at home here than there, you know?"

"Oh dear, maybe all that you need is a feminine touch?" Jess asked, before she could realize what she was offering, exactly.

"Maybe," Becker didn't seem to be enthused about Jess's suggestion, nor did he appear to realize what Jess has offered. "Anyways, uh, you're all done?"

"Oh, I'm in no rush, I can keep you company in this big building," Jess wasn't about to back down without one final attempt at least. "Surely, you wouldn't mind some company?.."

"Not really, no," Becker agreed, looking at Jess rather suspiciously. "But don't you have any plans for the evening?"

"No."

Matt Anderson couldn't sleep – his mental processes were working overtime, trying to assimilate the parting words of Danny Quinn into his new plan (such as it was).

Philip Burton was not to be trusted? Fair enough, Matt had never trusted him too much, and personally had thought that the latest incarnation of the ARC made about as much sense as a two-headed... well, anything, really, and the only reason why the Center was working so well was because Burton seemed to be sticking mainly to Prospero's share of the Center and didn't interfere with Lester's...

Suddenly, Matt stiffened. He _hadn't_ thought of this, actually, before. If Philip wasn't too interested in the ARC, then how could he be a threat? Moreover, if he wasn't a threat right now, would he become one in the future?

After the fiasco with Ethan Dombrowski, Matt felt the loss of his father even more acutely than before. Surely, he wouldn't have bet everything on just one person even if the latter seemed to be acting suspicious? No, of course no, but Matt did, and now, he was back where he had started, and his father was gone, and Emily Merchant was gone...

A rather delicate knock on the door shook Matt out of something that was suspiciously like weeping. "Yes?" he asked carefully. "Who is it?"

"Matt, it's Becker and me. We saw that the light was on in your office and came over to investigate," Jess's voice came from the other side of the door. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes! No! Yes, but we need to talk all the same. Come in," Matt finally made his choice – the memory of Abby and Becker fighting-off a giant prehistoric nautiloid through the time anomaly was still fresh enough in his mind, and so he made a decision.

"So, Danny said that Philip knew Helen Cutter," Becker spoke after Matt stopped. "Why am I not surprised? Whether she's alive or dead, it all comes back down to her – still."

"Oh? I've read her file, she seemed to be a madwoman – mostly," Jess carefully replied.

"She was," Becker said thoughtfully, "but... I cannot exactly imagine her working with Burton. That man is all about power, mostly derived from money, and Helen, well, she was a lot of things, but greedy wasn't one of them. If she'd been, she would've probably worked with Christine Johnson instead."

"Whom? The woman that she killed?"

"Lester's arch-nemesis, yes," Becker nodded. "She was with the military, they had their own time anomaly, if Helen wanted power and social clout she would've teamed-up with Johnson – the latter was all about power and to show Lester up. But Helen didn't. Personally, I cannot see what Philip would've given her that Christine Johnson couldn't. Matt?"

"Jess, does Prospero work with the military?" the field team's leader asked the computer specialist instead.

"Not exactly," Jess confessed. "Mostly with fuels – fossil, nuclear, you name it. Nothing direct. They're were environment-conscious, and are very interested in several fields. I can get you their official brochure very easily – why, you can get one yourself. Why? What's the interest?"

"I'm trying to figure out of that Johnson woman is the connection between Philip and Helen Cutter," Matt admitted. "So far I am coming up with nothing conclusive. You?"

"Why do we need to come up with something conclusive?" Jess spoke up. "Helen's dead, and Philip may have heard of her only by hearsay and formed a faulty opinion – this could've happened. Maybe we should just let it go."

"We'd love to, Jess, but Helen Cutter, well, actually you may have a point," Becker suddenly admitted. "She was just too convenient a scapegoat. Maybe we should just set her aside and keep an eye on Burton as a threat of his own."

"That's not what I had in mind," Jess muttered quietly, but neither Matt nor Becker seemed to hear her.

"I guess it's settled, then," Matt nodded to the other man with some noticeable relief. "Thanks, you two, you really helped me sort this out."

"So, you'll be leaving for your home now?" Jess enquired innocently.

"I should," Matt admitted, "but since my father died, it's... not been the same anymore. Can I stay here?"

Jess and Becker exchanged looks – Matt looked much less nonchalant than the usual. "Sure," Becker finally said, "you can stay. Want to play a game of cards?"

Matt just shrugged.

While Matt held a mini-conference with Becker and Jess, Connor and Abby were asleep like a couple of logs, sure enough. Philip Burton, however, was wide-awake, and was busy making plans of his own.

The British Government! In his youth Philip had had been a part of this organization, and since then, he was of a very low opinion of it. Truthfully, for a long while he had no intention of going into an impromptu partnership with it, until he has heard what the ARC was researching.

Ruptures in time! In that regard Philip Burton had had ideas of his own as well, and he had plans towards them. Working with the ARC seemed like a good idea at the time; now, with James Lester clearly having ideas of his own, and the minister in charge – even more so, he was beginning to have second thoughts.

Connor Temple... Philip wasn't sure what to do with the younger man. For a while, he planned to merely employ him, not unlike the way he had employed Jess Parker and Matt Anderson. Now, however, with the latest data that Connor given him, given _him_ and not his girlfriend, Philip felt... good. It was quite a while since somebody had trusted him so innocently, and it felt... good. And Philip liked this feeling, he always did, always had. So...

"Connor Temple – he _is_ useful to me," the businessman and scientist muttered to himself, "and if he is to remain useful, I have to... to co-operate with him. His former teammates... are the key. What to do with them? Madame Geraldine..."

Philip Burton had a very low opinion of the British government, but James Lester's superior had earned his particular dislike: it was akin to love at first sight, only in reverse. "She's going down," he muttered, "a trick as old as time..." He looked down at the list of names of the ARC workers, and smiled. "Hell, it worked for the ancient Romans, it worked for me!"

...If Philip Burton would've seen James Lester's direct superior at this time, he would've been a lot less confident (by about 90%) in the validity of his plan, and then just as resolute – but he didn't. Consequently, Geraldine was able to plot and weave her plan without interruptions. It was a good plan, it was a solid plan, but as always Geraldine forgot the no plan remained as it was when confronted with reality, as the morning when her plan was implemented, showed her.

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Episode 5x02**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The morning dawn brightly, Abby and Connor walked into the ARC building almost hand in hand, and froze, alongside the majority of the other people in there. The only exceptions were Philip Burton himself, who was busy talking animatedly about the newcomers, and the newcomers themselves.

"And so," Philip was finishing speaking, "this is Peter Collins, who'll be managing the Center's science department, especially in the area of physics from now on, and that is Michael Gallo, who'll be doing the Public Relations from now on also. Any more questions?"

There were none, save for some reluctant applause, that Connor and Abby joined in just as reluctantly as the others have started to, which Mr. Burton took as his cue to leave, and let the Center's new members get acquainted with the old ones in peace.

"So, you must Connor Temple," Peter Collins, a rather middle-aged and somewhat swarthy man spoke – with a noticeable Irish accent. "Please to meet you, sir, Madame Minister told me that your work on the time anomalies is quite admirable."

"Mostly when it comes to 'what to do with them'," Connor replied, blushing faintly, "as opposed to 'how they happen'. We have figured out that radio waves are involved somehow, but work has been slow, and there'd been various setbacks..."

"Of course, of course," Peter Collins nodded sombrely, "Oliver Leek, and Helen Cutter, and other malcontents. It must've been very hard on you, no?"

"Yes," Connor nodded in reply, "yes. Abby, uh, why don't you check on Becker and Jess? Me and Mr. Collins will see – I mean, look over the current time anomaly data-"

"Um," Abby wanted to argue, but she caught a look on the faces of Jess and Becker as they were talking to Michael Gallo for some reason, and neither looked particularly happy about that. "I'll see what I will able to do."

"Thanks."

"Hey, Jess! Who's your new friend?"

"Michael, this is Becker, head of the Center's security forces. Becker, this is Michael, he's a metrosexual."

"Ah, just like Cutter," Becker nodded sagely.

"I said metrosexual-"

"I heard you, and I mean what I said," Becker told Jess serenely.

"Is there a problem, you two?" Michael asked the other two people, sounding more bemused rather than hurt.

"No, not really," shrugged Becker. "So, uh, you know that we'll might have to cover up destruction wreaked by dinosaurs and similarly large animals?"

"So it'll be a challenge. Got to try at least," Michael shrugged, clearly not overly intimidated. "Anyways-"

"Hi! I'm Abby and this is Matt," Abby spoke-up as she and Matt Anderson approached Becker, Jess, and their new friend. "So, uh I guess you'll be working with us, then?"

"I guess," Michael clearly didn't mind talking to new people, but he got interrupted – by a time anomaly alarm.

"And this, Mr. Collins, is the data of the wielded time anomaly event. As you can see, the initial process – well, make that processes – is, or are, identical to the previous occurrences, the only difference is the actual overlapping of one time anomaly over the other. Hence the different output – or is it outputs?"

"Hmmm. As far as I can see, the time anomalies are always visible – visible to the naked eye," the physics specialist said thoughtfully. "This brings to mind that light waves are involved just as radio waves are."

"Um, but isn't light a particle as well as a wave?" Connor said, in a rather uncertain tone of voice.

"Yes it is," Peter nodded, thoughtfully. "Hmm. If my son was here, he'd suggest that time anomalies were just like sunspots... but let's leave astronomy out of it. Now-"

The time anomaly detector rang.

"Oh dear," Connor groaned, "field work awaits."

"Can't the field team deal with it on their own?" Peter asked, giving Connor an enigmatic look.

"Last time they tried, a nautiloid – a giant prehistoric ancestor of the modern octopi and squids – almost ate Becker and Abby," Connor shook his head. "I shudder to think-"

"We can hear you," Becker's voice sounded in Connor's mouthpiece, but got interrupted by Jess:

"Guys? There was a second time anomaly – just for a moment – but there was one. Well, the second one – the one that opened first is still there-"

"Where are they?" back at the compute station Matt urgently spoke to Jessica.

"The first one – at the grounds of the Botanical gardens. The second one – in a jewellery store on the Piccadilly Street."

The team (including Connor who had joined them by now) looked at each other.

"Is it just me, or this will require some strategy?" Connor finally spoke.

"My sentiments exactly," Becker agreed.

"Okay, this isn't what I had in a mind," Connor blinked about ten minutes later as he, Becker, and several of Becker's men rode in a pair of vans to the Piccadilly. "I wanted to go to the gardens."

"Me too wanted you to go to the gardens," Becker exhaled, "but thanks to Matt Anderson's leadership skills and keen decision-making, we're going here instead, together. Speaking of togetherness, what did you think of Peter Collins?"

"...I don't trust him," Connor exclaimed suddenly. "But as long as he doesn't try too hard to be friendly, I won't have any problems with him either? And, uh, the other guy?"

"Michael? I don't know. Everybody thinks that I should have problems with him because the man's a metrosexual. I don't – Cutter was a metrosexual and he did his job just fine."

"Nick Cutter was a great man!" Connor exclaimed hotly.

"_And_ a metrosexual – or did you think that these two qualities are mutually exclusive? Honestly, aside from some very pitiful hair styles, he did his job."

"Becker, you're a-"

"We're here," Becker stopped their car suddenly and abruptly, "and I do not like what I'm seeing."

"Great patron deity of the time anomalies! Mr. Burton was serious when he told about public disasters!" Michael Gallo exclaimed as he, Matt and Abby just silently stood and looked over the Botanical gardens.

"I wouldn't go so far – yet," Abby whispered to Matt sotto voce, "but it is going to get tricky, isn't it?"

Both Michael and Abby were right in their own way. Unlike the last time anomaly, when most of the animals that came through it were hidden underwater (a situation with its own challenges, of course), in this case all of the animals were pretty much in plain sight – and they were dinosaurs. Lightly-built bipedal dinosaurs that weren't much taller than a man, but still dinosaurs.

"What _are_ they?" Matt muttered to Abby. "Does Connor's database have a match?"

"Possibly, but is it important right now? Whether they're carnivorous or not, we must-"

Yet another one of the small dinosaurs perked out of the bushes, a dead squirrel clumped in its long and toothy jaws. Instinctively, Matt jerked his taser up and fired. The blast hit the small dinosaur right in the face, and it toppled, safely unconscious, still biting into the dead squirrel.

"Nice shot, man!" Michael expressed his approval. "Too bad there's still, I don't know, about a dozen of them or less? And I don't think that it will be that easy anymore."

Instead of replying, Matt looked in the direction that Abby was pointing at, wordlessly. There stood the other small dinosaurs, communicating with each other via short, high-pitched chirps, and they did not sound happy. In fact, it appeared that a counterattack was going to happen next, instead.

"Oh, bugger," Matt muttered angrily. "Mr. Gallo, get back into your car, now!"

"You and you!" Becker barked to two of his men, "get inside – carefully!"

"Becker?" Connor asked, quietly, but Becker wasn't having any of it.

"You – keep quiet! This doesn't look like the work of any prehistoric animal, so-" he paused, listening to the sounds that came from the shop as the two soldiers came into it, "get down!"

A monstrous explosion rocketed the shop, causing it to eject a huge amount of debris – some of it bloody, most of it sharp and angular – into the street. If Connor hadn't been pulled down by Becker, he would've struck by it face on. Instead, he survived.

"Is everybody-" he began to speak, when something red and moist – but definitely _not_ a tomato fell right onto his lap.

"Anymore stupid questions?" Becker's facial expression could probably peel pain off walls. "No?"

Connor shook his head, not trusting himself to speak.

"Good. Hey, Ethan, or whatever your name, arsehole, get out of here with your hands up!" Becker got from behind his car and yelled into the new semi-destroyed store.

And before Connor could point out that Becker was possibly wrong and this wasn't Ethan, he was proven wrong once again.

The dinosaurs charged en masse, their legs drumming a beat, their necks outstretched, and their jaws opened just wide enough to reveal their sharp teeth. Clearly realizing that they were buggered, Matt and Abby and their subordinates opened fire, but while it was certainly possible to bring one down with just a shot, these dinosaurs were also agile, quick and dexterous – they dodged the shots, and at the speed at which they were coming the people just couldn't focus their shots.

As the dinosaurs closed the gap and the shoot-out began to transform into a melee brawl where the dinosaurs had an advantage, the earth shuddered slightly and a large shadow fell over human and dinosaur alike.

"Whoa!" was all that Abby could exclaim.

"Ethan," Becker spoke in a rather bitter tone of voice, "where's Danny?"

"Probably still in the Pliocene, thinking that I'm there as well," Ethan chuckled in reply. "Silly Danny. He spent his life chasing muggers and pickpockets through the city streets claiming that he was doing it for me, but he never learned how to survive in the outdoors, properly. Pathetic."

"Don't diss Danny! You were his goal," Connor began but never finished, as Ethan pulled out a gun and fired in one smooth motion. If one of Becker's men didn't tackle Connor and brought him down, Connor would've received a bullet in his face; instead, Ethan missed.

Seeing that Ethan was distracted for the moment, Becker fired a shot of his taser with a desperate quickness. The blast hit Ethan straight in the chest... without any effects.

"The problem with technology is that it gets outdated very quickly, especially if it is fancy," Ethan snorted. "This, however," he whirled around and fired at Becker even as the other man dove behind cover, "has been around since World War I and hasn't been outdated one bit. So how you like them apples?"

"Whoa! It is huge!" Abby could hear the PR agent's awed whisper from behind her, and mutely agreed. The newcomer was a dinosaur, but very different. Though smaller than the titanosaurs she and Connor had seen in the Cretaceous, it had a body plan similar to them, and at 8 or 9 meters in length, it was the length and heft of a double-decker bus. Green and pale white stripes covered its body, and as it rose to its hind legs it towered over the other dinosaurs, the humans and the cars – it was about as high as a tree, put otherwise.

For several moments the new dinosaurs just stood there, and then emitted a hoarse guttural cry – and it was answered by a bellow that Abby had heard in the past, even though she tried to block it from her memory, for on that occasion she and Connor had almost _died_ – and the challenger jumped from behind the ARC's vehicles, and charged straight at the dinosaur.

Wordlessly, Abby stared. The cry in question had been similar to a bellow of the giant prehistoric crocodiles that Connor had identified back then as Sarcosuchus. This reptile too was similar to a crocodile, especially in the head and tail, but its body was built more like a mammal, and it ran in a mammalian style rather than a sprawling gate of a gator.

The dinosaur didn't care. It swung one of its forelimbs in a descending motion, trying to hit the predator in the face. Only, the latter rose on the front legs instead, bringing its massive jaws into a perfect position to clump on the dinosaur's long and relatively thin neck.

The dinosaur shouted again, or tried to, from the shear pain; its forelimbs desperately hit the other reptile, who ignored the feeble counterattack and made a sharp twist. There was a crack, and the large dinosaur went limp.

The reptilian predator paused, emitted another bellowing challenge, and promptly dragged its kill into the time anomaly that, fortunately, closed behind it.

"Where, where are the small dinosaurs?" Abby managed to exhale.

"Fled through the time anomaly when the carnivore attacked the big herbivore," Matt gasped back.

"Hate to burst your bubble, but some got left behind," Michael Gallo spoke up and pointed to a spot to the right of Matt. A pair of reptilian faces, one of which still had some squirrel meat in their faces, stared right at them.

As Ethan got momentarily distracted by Becker, Becker's subordinates were able to fire their own tasers at Ethan's unprotected back. Sadly, their shots seemed to make no effect on Ethan, except for him to whirl around and discharge his own revolver at them. Since _his_ own weapon fired real bullets, not taser blasts, the men were forced to duck behind cover once again.

"Come out, come out – I saw you!" Ethan laughed in the utterly crazy manner. "Come out, or I'll aim for the fuel tanks!"

"Hey, Patrick, moron, whatever your name is – face me!" Becker yelled from his own cover. Ethan whirled around, smoke still coming from his barrel – and the hand grenade that Becker threw exploded almost in his face.

Unfortunately, it was sting grenade, and so, instead of deadly shrapnel, it exploded into dozens of rubber ball-like pellets.

Fortunately, if that sort of explosive caused Ethan to flinch back slightly, shielding his face for the first time. That, apparently, gave Becker just the opening that he needed, as he pulled his own revolver and fired several rounds of his own. Most of his shots struck Ethan directly with the sound of metal hitting flesh, but the last one produced a clang of metal hitting metal instead.

"So," Ethan staggered back, slightly, "you've got a Webley of your own? I'll remember that – not that your gun will help you!"

And with these words the time travelling – and mentally challenged – assassin vanished in a time anomaly, leaving the ARC field team to stare in mute horror or fascination at his departure.

Slowly, Becker got behind his cover and for some reason examined the spot where Ethan used to stand. Then he straightened up, picking up something from the ground, and his current facial expression made the previous ones look downright cheerful.

"You, you and you," he told several of his subordinates, "stay outside of the shop and guard it, unless notified otherwise. If someone comes to investigate, contact the Center. You," he turned to Connor, "are coming back with me."

Connor took one look at Becker's face and wordlessly complied.

The dinosaurs took one look at the humans staring back at them, and... there was a rustle coming from behind them. Instinctively, the two smallish reptiles raced away from it, jumping into the nearest cover...that happened to be one of the ARC's vans.

"Got you!" Matt proclaimed proudly, sliding the van's doors shut, as a beak-like snout of yet another plant-eating dinosaur poked from out of the shrubbery. A wild array of taser blasts brought it down.

"Now what?" Michael joined Matt and Abby outside.

"Now we bring them to the ARC, to – hopefully – identify them and send them back to their proper time period, while you do your job - damage control," Abby replied.

"I can do that, sure," Michael just shrugged.

"Connor!" Abby called-out almost cheerfully, "you're back! What great timing! Now you can-" she fell silent as Connor promptly approached and hugged her very, very tightly. "Connor, what gives?"

"Ethan's back, and he's better armed – and that's just the tip of the iceberg," Becker explained helpfully, "we need to speak to Burton or whoever is in charge of it now."

"Since Lester's on his vocation and Lorraine's still with down with flu – it's Burton all right," Matt exhaled. "You sure it was Ethan?"

Becker just glared at him. "That's not good at all."

"Ah, glad to see that you're back!" Burton said jovially as Peter Collins left his office. "Me and Mr. Collins were discussing the time anomalies – Connor, what do you think about using a spectrometer alongside a radio next time to – what's wrong?"

"Well, secondly, we've got some dinosaurs from the late Triassic that we'll need to send back manually, for the original time anomaly had closed naturally," Connor explained, listlessly, "but firstly – Ethan's back, and Becker thinks that he's bullet-proof or something."

Philip carefully leaned forwards, his eyes sharp and thoughtful. "Captain?"

"I shot at him several times with an Mk-VI revolver," Becker explained. "One of the shots bounced off, deformed," he pulled out a clearly deformed piece of metal onto the table. "Here it is, too."

"Hey!" Abby snapped sharply. "Firearms are not allowed-"

"Officially, they are not forbidden either," Becker snapped back, "and furthermore, Ethan, Patrick, or whatever his name is, didn't bleed. Tasers didn't affect him at all, neither did the sting grenade, and when it came to getting shot – he didn't bleed. _This_ bullet bounced off, but others didn't, and yet Ethan didn't bleed at all. And this a Mk-VI revolver, I had from my military days-"

"Connor?" Matt interrupted Becker, "you want anything to add?"

"No," Connor exhaled, "well... The self-made bomb of Ethan's tore two people apart, and he wasn't scratched one bit. Plus he has some sort of a different time anomaly manifestation device – he vanished in a time anomaly in a blink of an eye...so yes, Ethan had had an upgrade."

"And he is not prehistoric," Becker added, "so killing him won't change the course of history, now would it?"

"Must be futuristic, then," Matt said quietly, yet loud enough to be heard.

"Excuse me?" Burton asked, politely, albeit frowning slightly.

"I mean, unless he got metal armour underneath a Kevlar vest or something, it must be from the future, right?" Matt insisted.

"You bet," Becker said vehemently. "A blunderbuss – an ancient shotgun, basically, could pierce armour with ease. A modern revolver, well-"

"Excuse me," the speakerphone on Philip Burton's desk sprung to life, "it's Michael. I, uh, fixed the situation at the Gardens, but the dinosaurs you brought back here are getting out of hand – can you do something out of it?"

The ARC field team exchanged looks and raced back down to the holding facilities.

Down there, it was pure chaos. The two small carnivorous dinosaurs were being chased by Dragon the Dracorex, while the bigger herbivore was sniffing at the Columbian mammoth in a friendlier manner.

"Right, a juvenile or a young adult prosauropod of some sort, and a pair of Coelophysis, or some other coelurosaurs," Connor said slowly, "Middle to Late Triassic, most likely. Well, we'll fire up our time anomaly manifestation device and send them there-"

"Not so fast – whoa, Connor, dude! It's you! You work here?"

"Michael," Connor said in the same way that Becker said his name, "so do you, apparently. Does your special friend know about this?"

"Nah-uh. Mr Burton, dude, he was adamant about that, you know? Anyways-"

"Everyone, this is Michael Gallo, a special friend of one of James Lester's neighbours," Connor said, still clearly unhappy. "I met him when I was living at Lester's when Abby was hosting her brother. Just so that we clear."

"Told you," Becker said to Jess, who had finally joined them in the holding facility, "and speaking of you, we haven't heard from you all day – was everything all right?"

"Yes, sorry," Jess said, turning a noticeably red colour. "Mr. Burton and Peter had me assisting them all the time, and you weren't calling either-"

"It's a misunderstanding, then, and nobody's fault in particular," Connor spoke in a rather brusque way (for him). "Speaking of misunderstandings – Michael, what were you going to say?"

"As far as the public is concerned, we were running a test drive for some sort of a dinosaur show, complete with some animatronic models that got out of hand," the latter replied eagerly. "That said, there might be a possibility that some of the media companies – like the ITV – might decide to ask Mr. Burton about it. If worst comes to worst, wouldn't it be useful to have the originals around from which to copy the animatronics, you savvy?"

Michael Gallo's statement was greeted by silence, until it was finally broken by Connor. "Well, we wanted a new PR agent – we got one," he finally exclaimed. "Let's go and talk to Mr. Burton about it. For now, though, the new dinosaurs get to stay."

"And we still haven't got rid of the ancient vermin from the previous time anomaly," Jess muttered quietly.

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

**Episode 5x03**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The sun was shining brightly, the weather was hot, but not very humid, and Jenny felt that she was beginning to freckle almost as soon as they have exited the airplane. "So, Mrs. Keenan, how's the honeymoon so far?" Michael asked her, clearly teasing.

Jenny couldn't help but to grin back. After their rather chaotic marriage thanks to the ARC team and the hyenadons Jenny had felt somewhat apprehensive, even jittery, for the obvious reasons, but after Lester had them wed, things got back on track very quickly.

"Sorry for falling asleep back on the plane," Jess almost yawned once again despite the fact that it was a bright sunny day all around them. "Guess that shopping in the French airport and the slight time zone shift took more out of me than I thought."

"That's okay," Michael said with his trademark grin, "I managed to make some videos all the same."

Jenny rolled her eyes. When they left on their honeymoon, Michael told her immediately that he planned to shoot videos during their trip, and she agreed eagerly enough, but yet... "Come on, surely there were more exciting themes to record than me snoring on the flight here," she said wryly.

"Actually," Michael began, but was interrupted by one of the airport's security officers:

"No loitering!" the man barked in heavily accented English. "No loitering tourists!"

"Now see here," Jenny glared, but Michael put a restraining hand on her triceps.

"Jenny, the man has a point of sorts – there is a crowd here."

"Yes," Jenny agreed, reluctantly. It was somewhat odd, that the majority of the people seemed to be leaving the resort, not arriving to it... but was it to them? "Michael, let's go and get settled in."

As the recently married couple walked through the resort town's steep streets (their hotel wasn't too far from the airport and they had light luggage, so they decided to walk instead of loaning a taxi), Jenny's initially slight unease deepened somewhat. "Mike, is it just me, or are the streets somehow have a more crowded, less festive feel to them?" she spoke. "Or am I just being weird?"

"I'm not sure, dear," Michael admitted, "quite a few people seem to be going to the airport... strange..."

"Yes, well," Jenny shrugged, "there's nothing..." she stiffened. "Michael, wait a second, I need to check-out someone..." she rapidly walked down a sideways-leading street. Feeling rather unbalanced for some reason, Michael followed her. His premonitions were proven correct.

"You!" Michael found Jenny haranguing one of the local street peddlers, in this particular case, of sketches and pencil drawings, "you! Connor and Abby told me that you were dead! How can you be alive, when, when-"

"Ah, dear, is there something that you need to tell me?" Michael said gently, "like, why are you harassing the woman?"

"The woman, that woman-"

"Is selling her drawings and sketches," Michael finished, "we have them in merry old England too, and I didn't know that you were a Tory."

Jenny opened her mouth, closed it, blinked, and opened it once again. "I'm not a Tory, Michael, and this, this-"

"Jenny, why don't we sit down and let the woman do her job? My dictionary isn't very good, I admit, but I'm reasonably sure that she does portraits in fifteen minutes or less, or they're free."

"Oh really?" Jenny said, now looking downright incredulous. "That I got to see. Honey, let's get drawn!"

As minutes went by, Jenny's excitement grew in proportion, and she had a good reason. Helen Cutter! The woman who killed Nick and just had to be dead! Here in the Mediterranean, doing sketches? Impossible!

Well, not impossible (when it came to the ARC and ARC-related topics nothing was impossible, as Jenny had learned a long time ago), but certainly improbable; and for Helen's sketches to be good? Even more so.

The sand in the sand clock had run out, Helen put down her pencil, and thrust the paper over to Michael. "Well, dear, what do you think?" the latter asked Jenny gently.

Jenny took their new portrait, and stared. "Michael, that's, that's us!" she stated the obvious. "You can tell that that's really us! That's, that's really lovely!"

Feeling heat on her cheeks that didn't have to do anything with the sun at the moment, Jenny thrust the indicated price to the not-Helen. "Sorry about the scene before," she said, quietly. "I have confused with someone else, apparently. No harm, um?"

The woman took the money, blinked, said something in either French or Italian and pointed in a direction behind the newlyweds and to their rights.

"Er, I think she accepted your apology, and suggested that we go there, I think," Michael finally spoke, after he leafed through his book. "Got to admit, her idea looks attractive."

Jenny looked in that direction as well. Apparently, not-Helen had pointed them to a local equivalent of a pub, from where the sounds of jazz could be heard, and it looked quite nice, and cool, and not particularly expensive – just the right place for a pair of tourists new to the city.

"Think she gets commission from the pub's management?" Jenny muttered as she and Michael walked over to the pub, feeling the sketch artist gazing bemusedly at their retreating backs.

"Quite likely," Michael nodded, as they entered the establishment. "Ah, garcon?"

"Yes?" the waiter responded to them in quite understandable English. "Would the mister and missus like a table?"

"Yes," Michael nodded in reply, seeing that Jenny wasn't in a very talkative mood for a change. "We would."

"Come this way, then."

"Certainly."

As the waiter seated them at a table in a corner opposite to the bar and next to one of the pub's big windows, leaving them to wait for their menus. "So, Mrs. Keenan, what're you thinking about?" he asked her gently, "that you're so quiet?"

"Mike, we're married."

"Yes, dear."

"We're really married."

"Yes, dear."

"We're going to be a Mr. and Mrs. Keenan from now on."

"'Till death does as part," Michael nodded in a more sombre tone. "What, it never hit you completely until now?"

"No," Jenny admitted, before leaning over the lightly-built table and giving her husband a great kiss straight on the lips. "Not until now!"

Michael blinked, collected his bearings more or less, and leaned back right to Jenny. Only the polite cough of their waiter broke them out of their reverie.

"Ah, sorry about this," Michael had the good grace to be embarrassed – somewhat. "Are the menus here? Any recommendations?"

"Today's special," the waiter replied, unperturbed. "Spaghetti with meatballs, light red wine and garlic bread."

"Sounds nice, but no garlic bread for me," Jenny said, blushing.

"Same for me... well, some garlic bread is fine," added Michael.

"Yes sir, ma'am," the waiter nodded and departed with their order.

"So," Jenny said breathlessly, "our arrival here seems to be shaping up nicely, wouldn't you say?"

"Very," Michael nodded... and then the small TV-set began to speak something in the local language, but loudly enough to catch their attention... and keep it. After all, the sight of an 8-meter-long shark bursting out of the water, and swallowing a small rowing boat almost completely wasn't something that was easily ignored, even if it's a TV-translation.

"Jenny," Michael said quietly, as phone numbers rushed across the screen, "I don't think that this is a hoax or a promotion of a new local film. I think I saw this shark."

"Pardon?" Jenny said incredulously. "When?"

"When you were asleep," Michael explained, as he pulled out his video camera. "I've been recording you asleep, but then I looked out of the airplane's window, and see for yourself," he got the video rolling.

Jenny thoughtfully looked at the screen. A rather blurry, shape was swimming through the sea water at a great distance away from the video recorder, but even so the rather impressive size of the sea beast could be realized.

Still, Jenny couldn't just back down from an argument so easily, it was just not in her nature. "Maybe it's a whale or a dolphin?" she asked weakly.

"There're no whales in the Mediterranean," Michael explained eagerly, "and dolphins are sociable animals that breathe air and need to break the surface of the water. This animal never did surface, but instead eventually submerged instead, as you can see. Jenny, I think that's the shark."

"Tell you what," Jenny said slowly, "let's go to our hotel, register there, find a phone book, find whom this phone number belongs to...and play from there by the ear. Of course, hopefully we'll find someone English-speaking."

"Sounds like a plan," Michael nodded, as he put away his video camera while the waiter finally brought them their meals. "But first, we eat!"

Jenny grinned (reminding herself that the possible prehistoric giant shark wasn't her problem anymore) and dug in into her spaghetti. It was really good, too.

It was several hours later. Michael and Jenny finished their meal (it was quite good, actually), left the pub and finally went to the hotel. Initially, Jenny entertained the possibility of re-approaching the not-Helen sketch artist and thanking her for the recommendation, but the latter was busy arguing with someone tall, muscular, tattooed and also clearly female, so she didn`t follow that impulse at all.

Instead (feeling very grateful to her lucky star that the tattooed giantess hadn't been around when she had initially confronted the sketch artist), she followed her husband, and soon enough they found themselves at their hotel. Once again, there seemed to be a sort of a weird feeling in the streets, but now, coupled with the knowledge of the possible prehistoric giant shark, that weird feeling took-on a new dimension.

"Well, we're here," Michael spoke cheerfully, "want me to carry you over the threshold again?"

"You just want to grope me, don't you?" Jess replied archly.

"Ms. Lewis, do you mind?" another man, as he emerged from his own room, snapped angrily. "Oh, bugger!"

There was a brief pause, during which Jenny began to blush slightly. "Oh, I remember you," Michael said cheerfully, "You're Jenny's former boss, aren't you? What are you doing here, anyways?"

"Won the lottery," Lester said dismissively, "it's not important at the moment, now is it? I'm guessing that this is your honeymoon?"

"Exactly, and can you give us some advice?" Michael said, cheerfully.

"No," Lester glared at the younger man, "I don't give that sort of advice – honestly, it is as if I never left London, you're just as bad as Temple!"

"James, this is job-related," Jenny said firmly.

"I'm on vacation," Lester glared, but his heart wasn't in it, Jenny could tell.

"And we're on our honeymoon," Jenny pressed on. "Look, can you just take a look at it, and we'll do it on our own – something or other."

"Fine," Lester capitulated completely. "Come on in and show me what you've got."

When Lester saw Michael's admittedly blurry video recording, heard about the news and the commotion in the streets, he grew somewhat more thoughtful, but not very enthusiastic. "So what are you going to do about it?" he shrugged, still not too impressed. "I'm not going to get the local government involved – this video of yours is a typical amateurish video of something or other, and beyond that, you've got nothing." He paused, and added, "and as for the TV station, you sure that that wasn't a promotion of a film? From what I understood, your grip on the local languages isn't very good – some misunderstandings could have risen."

"You said it," Michael admitted cheerfully, before Jenny could kick him, discreetly. "Earlier today Jenny had a misunderstanding with one of the locals. Still, we got a sketch out of it, so it wasn't all bad."

"Really?" Lester replied, politely, "can I see it?"

"I guess," Jenny replied reluctantly, producing the piece of paper in question. "What do you think?"

"Very nice," Lester finally admitted, reluctantly. "Maybe I should go and get a sketch of myself, to piss Philip later when I get back. Can you tell me how she looks like so if I run into her I'll know whom to ask?"

"She's Helen's look-a-like," Jenny admitted, even more reluctantly. "Believe me, you'll know her when you'll meet her."

"...There was only one Helen," Lester said, "and there are no such things as look-a-likes."

"Claudia Brown."

"A figment of Cutter's imagination. Harmless though quite possibly annoying and frustrating, just like the rest of his personality."

"I found a photo of hers in some of Nick's belongings after he died," Jenny shot back.

"So Cutter's obsession with you being blonde got bad enough that he had to Photoshop one of your pictures," Lester wasn't budging on this one. "I always knew that Cutter wasn't perfect – big deal. I agree that that is nothing to be proud about, but still-"

"Lester, even I know more about computers that you ever would, and that wasn't any Photoshop," Jenny said firmly. "In any case, our arguments are pointless: Helen's look-a-like has a very big, very muscular, very tattooed girlfriend, so fighting her will just get your arse kicked-"

"Who says anything about confrontations?" Lester shrugged. "Jenny, you and your husband enjoy the rest of your honeymoon here; I've got my own life to live."

With those words Lester got up and very firmly left the room.

"Well, that was educational," Jenny muttered some time later as she and Michael unpacked their belongings, "now I remember why I quit the job at the Center – Lester could be a real right ass!"

"Yes, dear," Michael nodded thoughtfully, "incidentally, was this Cutter your boyfriend who died?"

"Essentially, yes," Jenny admitted, as she flopped down on their bed, "only we never dated or anything, so calling him my boyfriend would be a stretch. As Lester had said, he had his flaws, but so do I, I suppose, and Lester certainly does..."

"No argument there, I suppose as well," Michael agreed as he joined Jenny on the bed, "but-?"

"But, it's weird," Jenny confessed. "It's like there's an ARC investigation going on, and I'm an outsider now. It's not necessarily bad, it's just weird." She edged sideways, cuddling against Michael. "Still..."

"You want closure?" Michael said quietly.

"I can live without it?"

"True, but let's try to get you some, shall we? Plus, I'm not quite sure if I want to go into water until we've got the issue of the giant shark sorted out-"

"My hero," Jenny muttered wryly. "Well, let's go then!"

When Michael and Jenny had eventually arrived at the spot, there wasn't anybody familiar at all. "Okay, I didn't see this coming," Michael confessed to his wife, "I thought-"

"Hey, mister!" a little boy – probably a tourist – yelled to the couple, "if you're looking for the lady who works here, she went home!"

"And where does she live?" Jenny asked, incredulously.

"I have no idea," the boy shrugged, and returned to bugging his mom to buy him some ice cream.

"Now what?" Jenny and Michael looked at each other.

"I have an idea – to the harbour!"

"What are we looking for here?" Jenny asked some time later, as the two of them stood in the busy, noisy, smelly island harbour. "Honestly, finding anyone here, strange or familiar, is like finding a needle in a haystack!"

"Precisely!" Michael answered sagely. "If there's anything that's chronologically displaced, it's the shark, right?"

"So?"

"Jenny, you say that you know people. What do people think when they think of a shark?"

Jenny frowned in thought. "Are you saying," she finally asked, "that some of those people are going to try to catch the shark?"

"Very much so, indeed!" Michael beamed proudly. "I mean, there's no proof that the shark had swallowed a boat, right? Odds are that they're thinking that this is either a hoax or an exaggeration of a quite large but realistically so white shark. So, every boating wannabe, every reporter and ambitious fisherman will be out here or out in the sea-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Jenny said quickly, "they're doing almost, but not quite, what we're doing, right?"

"Yes, only it's the other way around – we aren't looking for the shark, we're looking for people who are looking for the shark-"

"Or rather, for one specific person and two more generic," Jenny said thoughtfully. "I'm – I'm not sure, but before I worked for Lester the Center had to deal with a prehistoric sea monster – it went reasonably well, the animal got driven back from when it came, so..."

"So?" Michael pressed his wife gently.

"So, I'm not sure, but if I were a prehistoric shark, would I attack this Spanish Armada rip-off?" Jenny admitted. "I'm not sure. And Lester would suspect that as well. Therefore..." she drawled away, "look, let's just go there and have fun. Maybe you'll be able to record some more mementos of our trip and here or we'll actually get to go on a boat. How does it sound?"

"Lovely," Michael admitted, "I never been on a proper boat ride since I was little. You?"

"Never ever," Jenny admitted. "That said, I cannot imagine Lester leasing a boat to go shark-hunting – he is more of a stay-at-the-back sort of a manager. But isn't it why we're actually here? To get ourselves a boat?"

"No, not exactly," Michael admitted. "I mean, a boat ride would be neat and adventurous, but I was thinking that the sketch artist's tattooed friend would be among those who'd be down there on a boat."

"And you thought that we could just invite ourselves for a ride, especially if Lester were there as well," Jenny sighed. "Well, why not. Lead on, Watson!"

"Watson?" Michael blinked in surprise. "And who are you? Holmes?"

"Why not?" Jenny fluttered her eyelashes. "How about it?"

"That's the spirit!" Michael said cheerfully. "Let's descend!"

As Michael and Jenny descended, Jenny's decision to be spontaneous and not to overthink as she had in the past, began to waver. "That, that is just nasty!" she gasped.

"It's fish bait," Michael explained, looking vaguely regretful. "It's fish produce, basically."

"Really?" Jenny whirled around with a rather acidic gaze in her eye, when... she noticed something to her side. "Hey, wait a second-"

"Yes?"

"Didn't we see her before?" Jenny pointed to a rather taller-than-the-average tattooed backside that was moving through the crowd, carrying one of the bait balls, and it was a big one. "Like, when we left the local pub or whatever?"

"That's her," Michael nodded, excitedly, "Jenny, follow her. The game's afoot!"

"Oh bother," Jenny rolled her eyes, albeit in a loving way. "Let's just follow her."

Following the tall, tattooed and mysterious was not what Jenny had expected. On one hand, the woman was easy to follow – she was taller than the average person, and thus easy enough to pick out of the crowd. Conversely, though, the crowd itself was rather dense, and Jenny and Michael had hard enough time getting through it. And, considering that their clothing wasn't really fitted for that sort of environment, Jenny shuddered to imagine what it looked like before long.

And yet... it brought back memories, ones that Jenny neither thought nor wanted – how she met Nick Cutter in a building overrun with prehistoric worms, how their relationship progressed...

Here Jenny almost stumbled when she realized, or rather, remembered, that their relationship has never progressed at all. Now that she had grounds to comparison, Nick seemed to have alternated pining for not-her, namely Claudia Brown, and pining for Stephen after the latter's death. Either way, for all of Nick's good qualities (and rugged good looks), Nick just wasn't Michael.

"Have I told you how much I appreciate you, lately?" Jenny quietly whispered into Michael's ear. "Closure or not, thanks for having us do this."

"You're welcome," Michael whispered back, clearly happy to see that Jenny wasn't too angry with him anymore, "but we're... here?"

Well, they certainly were somewhere – a bit off to the side of the main harbour entrance, near a rather impressive sailboat that somehow had a rather scientific feel. The taller-than-average woman was there as well, staring back at them in a way that wasn't either confrontational or welcoming.

"And you two are?" she asked, gruffly.

"Uh," Jenny exchanged a look with Michael. Somehow this seemed to be something of a gap in their planning, "we're here in regards for... James Lester?"

"Yeah, we've got him onboard, all right," the woman nodded, solemnly. "Didn't know he had any friends?"

"Eh," Jenny shrugged, unwilling to call James Lester her friend outright. "It happens. Can we come on board?"

"Do you know where we're going?" the woman didn't budge.

"This is about the shark, isn't it?" Michael decided to reply instead. "Look, we may not be so sure about the risks, but please... Jenny needs closure, actually."

"And you think that fixing a prehistoric giant shark is the right way to do it?" the woman grinned suddenly. "I like your way of thinking, Englishman. Welcome aboard!"

The first people whom Michael and Jenny saw, of course, were James and the sketch artist.

"Helen," Jenny spoke, all doubts about the woman's identity disappearing at once, "it is you."

"Maybe, or maybe I'm just a clone," Helen shrugged, not very impressed by Jenny's admittedly less than dramatic re-entrance. "Don't tell me – you want closure of some kind, too."

"Well, who else – Mr. Lester?" Michael said, calmly. Lester's reaction, however, was anything but calm:

"Ms. Lewis, take your man and leave. This doesn't concern you anymore," the elder man said sternly.

"You're right," Jenny agreed, "but we're coming along for the ride altogether."

"Do you, now?" Helen asked, softly. "This is my boat, you know? Kuro won't get too upset if she's to send you back down, either."

"Kuro?" Jenny turned around and came face to... chest with the taller woman. Somehow, in the personal space, she seemed even taller than before. "Right, Kuro. Eh, uh, you move really quiet for someone who's really tall?"

"Nice try, but I'm not into women," Kuro grinned, revealing a row of teeth. "And Helen's got a point – it's her boat, and she's fixing my mess."

"Your mess? Then you're the one who brought the shark here?" Jenny said, incredulously. "Not, Helen?"

"I didn't mean to!" Kuro replied defensively. "I was trying to impress a guy and it sort-of misfired..."

"Anyone we know?" Michael asked in a friendly tone of voice.

"Yes, Quinn, the elder brother," Lester replied instead, distinctly unhappy. "Your wife met him briefly, and for the record, I feel like I'm trapped in a bloody soap opera, and you're not making it any easier."

"Well, not everything is about you, James," Jenny said firmly. "We're staying, and that's that!"

"I can kill them, if they're too much trouble," Kuro spoke-up from behind them in a tone of voice that left for Jenny no room for doubt that yes, the tall woman could do that without any pangs of conscience.

"No," Helen said flatly. "Enough blood, do you hear? The two of them can keep James company..."

"And James will be keeping you company?" Kuro asked, with a wink.

Jenny and Michael blinked and stared at Helen and James, who stared back at them, or rather – at Kuro with distinctly unamused looks. "Hey, a girl got to ask," the giantess shrugged. "Helen, we're setting sail, or what?"

"Let's go, then," Helen shrugged, calmly. "Lester, do you know how to steer, incidentally?"

James just rolled his eyes but said nothing.

Helen's sea vessel may have looked compact, but it did have a couple of cabins for the crew and/or passengers. The one that Michael and Jenny were led to had a glass window in the floor perfect for observing the sea life below the ship.

"So, Jenny, what do you think?" Michael said quietly, as Jenny looked through the floor window. "Is it something that you've expected?"

"No, but I'm enjoying it – in a matter of speaking – all the same," Jenny replied, also quiet. "Can I make the next big decision, though?"

"Didn't you, already? When you decided that we would follow Kuro here?" Michael countered.

"And if I refused, would you have agreed?" Jenny frowned in thought – Nick tended to plough his decisions right through the opposition, leaving the others to follow in his wake. "Would you?"

"Yes, of course," Michael said, frowning thoughtfully. "Your previous boyfriend didn't?"

"Not really, and he wasn't my boyfriend exactly," Jenny said slowly, "the two of us... I never thought about it..." she shook her head. "Maybe your idea of me getting closure is better than we both have thought."

Before Michael could reply he and Jenny could feel their craft picking up speed. Looks like they had found the shark, anyways.

When Michael and Jenny got back to the deck, the tattooed woman – Kuro – was already there, holding a nasty-looking javelin or light spear that was tied to the ship's board by a thick rope.

"What's that?" Jenny asked, politely.

"A fish hook, Englishwoman," Kuro replied, cheerfully, "also known as plan B. If the fish gets the bait first, I'm to hook it and pull it into the time anomaly after the ship."

"Um," Jenny saw something in the corner of her eye once again, "don't want to spoil your captain Ahab fantasy, but I think I see the shark's back fin, and it's huge!"

"No, just half-grown at most," Kuro smiled, flashing those teeth of hers. "And don't worry about size – in my secret identity I am bigger yet! And you two, better hold onto the railing, 'cause we're about to pick up speed!"

And they most certainly did. Helen's vessel must've had some futuristic technology, since the small ship seemed to be literally ploughing through the waters...or not, for the shark, while not closing the gap, wasn't falling too far behind either.

"This is neat," Michael declared, as sea breeze and foam rose to each side of the speeding ship. "Isn't it?"

"Yup," Jenny grinned, "this is certainly something..."

And then the time anomaly flared into life and light around them, and the sheep steered sharply to the right, the rope that tied the bait ball to the craft was torn apart – as the bait ball was flung away, the giant prehistoric shark put on one final burst of speed, swallowed it whole and disappeared into the marine depths.

"And it didn't look like a white shark at all – more like a giant bull shark, actually," muttered Michael.

"It's a possibility," Helen agreed nonchalantly, as she and James Lester rejoined the other three on the deck. "Jenny, Mr. Keenan, welcome to my South American camp. We'll be docking there... shortly. ...And look, Danny Quinn is already there – Kuro, this is going to be awkward."

The giant woman, namely Kuro, had the good grace to look sheepish. Jenny, however, just sat back down on the deck and prepared to enjoy the fireworks – she had a feeling that this was going to be a good one.

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

**Episode 5x04**

_Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The golf field lay green and inviting, almost devoid of life save for golfers, their families, and their carts.

"Fore!" And a shiny white golf ball soared clearly over the field.

Philip Burton was barely able to restrain a grimace. He hated golf – the only other sport he hated more than golf was cricket – and the only reason as to why he was here, was to make a business deal with the chaps from Bridges™, and they were always more responsive when dealing while golfing, the only reason.

It wasn't that Philip was bad at golf – he actually was a reasonably good player for someone of his social stature. It just that he was never able to see the point in it, it was just so stupid!..

"Fore!"

Once again a golf ball sailed over the field – this time it vanished in the beech copse that was edging the field at one side. There was a thunk, and a clunk, and a deep coughing roar... the last sound didn't belong to a well-manage golf field in any incarnation.

"Oh my," Philip said slowly, feeling his spirits actually beginning to lift, as controversial as it sounded, "now _this_ is something unexpected!"

The time anomaly blared throughout the ARC complex. "A time anomaly detected in the Cummings' golf fields," Jess's voice followed the alarm through the speaker-system. "It's, uh, doesn't seem to be going away."

"Thanks, Jess," Matt and Becker, followed closely by Connor and Abby, appeared next to her. "Got these travel routes ready?"

"Actually, Mr. Burton arranged us to have helicopters for just this case of out-of-London emergency," Jess shrugged. "Our Center now has its very own quick response team reaction!"

Connor opened his mouth to say something, but a look from Matt and a glare from Becker stifled this urge, and soon they were on their way. (Somewhat reluctantly – Jess had to admit to herself that her staying to guard the fort while the rest of the team was kind of getting old and unpleasant – Jess remained behind to co-ordinate the efforts.)

In an ironic twist of fate, Philip – who had never liked animals very much to begin with – lately found himself hanging around an ever-growing number of prehistoric beasts. The original animals were rather like golf, actually – rather pointless and unimportant features in the great scheme of life. But compared to the newcomers, well, they were actually _well-behaved_!

The newcomers in question were the 'wild' dinosaurs that had currently taken overly the golf field. Grunting like so much oversized, overly smelly cattle, they just mulled around, doing nothing.

"And it took the Center to realize that all of these animals were just a side effect – an unpleasant side effect – of the real problem so long _why_?" Burton muttered sarcastically. "Our Majesty's governmental thinking, no doubt!"

There was a soft chirp, and Philip turned around, somewhat surprised, only to discover a small lizard-bird – well, a dinosaur, naturally – creature looking at him in an inquiring sort of way. For a moment Burton just thought he should bash its' head in with a golf club. But then he remembered that the dinosaurs the ARC field team had encountered had looked rather similar to this one, and that as soon as one of them got tasered down, the rest attacked the field team all at once. And Philip was sure that he wouldn't be able to beat a horde of screaming small bird-dinosaurs of the own, never mind the larger, hornier ones that were occupying the main body of the golf field right now.

Seething with anger and irritation, Burton settled back down to wait for the ARC field team to arrive, forgetting about the smaller reptiles for the moment. This action was going to have consequences, but he didn't know that at the moment.

"I don't believe it! We're flying in a helicopter!" Abby babbled excitedly. "I've never flown in a helicopter before! This is so cool! Guys, isn't it cool?"

"I wouldn't know, because I'm back at the base," Jess's voice sounded genuinely regretful. "Guys?"

"It has its pluses," Matt admitted. "Connor, Becker?"

"Too many bad memories of the past," Becker shook his head dismissively, "I'd rather not go into it. Connor?"

"I'm really sure that Philip gotten the Center these helicopters to prevent Peter from getting that spectroscope," Connor admitted. "And by spectroscope, I mean a device of observatory proportions, from what Jess showed me, it was almost the type used in astronomy, not something more down to earth."

"Isn't he specializing in physics, though?" Abby asked, curious despite himself.

"Yes, but his son is into astronomy instead, and the two Peters, senior and junior, tend to rub off each other, they are quite similar in character too, from what I've heard," Connor continued, a trifle wistfully. "I wonder if my son would be more into technology or dinosaurs – Abby, what do you think?"

Abby blinked – once, twice, and began to turn red, which, considering that she was a natural blonde, was quite vivid indeed.

"Connor," Matt said diplomatically, manoeuvring himself between the young couple, "let's not go there just yet, shall we? First let's go and deal with the dinosaurs, okay?"

"Yes," Connor blinked, realizing that he had messed up somehow again, "let's."

Back in the control floor of the ARC, Jess felt just as bothered by Connor's statement as Abby did, albeit for different reasons. Ever since Connor, Abby and the others had attended the wedding of Jenny Lewis, it was clear that the concept of married life was never too far away from Connor's mental process; it was amazing, really, that he wasn't asking for advice about it from other men, or even his parents, perhaps.

Jess, however, didn't care about Connor's procrastination, not at this point in time. It was Becker's response, or rather lack of it, which bothered her more. True, while Connor and Abby had been exposed to Jess's wedding extravaganza, she and Becker had to defuse one of Ethan Dombrowski's mega-sized nail bombs, but still... even Matt was reacting with some emotion to Connor's statement, but Becker just didn't. He practically ignored it.

Becker... Jess knew that he was a good man as well as a manly man and very well built (not that she had been sneaking peaks, she _hadn't_), but... did he want to be a father? From what Jess could see so far, Becker wasn't a man about town, rather a complete opposite, but otherwise he seemed to be quite happy in being a bachelor, and... and where did it leave her?

Well, not with too many dating opportunities inside the job, that's for sure. Possibly lonely too, and Jess had no intent of being an old maid. But what to do about that, though?

"Becker?" she spoke into her mouthpiece, "when you get back... can we please talk?"

Becker responded in silence so profound, that Jess began to grow nervous that she had accidentally switched her speaker system off. Finally, to her relief, Becker replied:

"...I guess. Once we've dealt with the dinosaurs, and I can tell you right now, that they're going to be a handful!"

"Deal," Jess exhaled in relief. "By the way, what sort of dinosaurs are they?"

"Big."

"Yes, Becker, we can see that they're big, about as big as our mammoth," Connor snapped angrily, as he searched through his database for a match. "You don't have to be stating the obvious!"

"Actually, I was talking to Jess," Becker explained, patiently. "Anyways, what are you so huffy about? Obvious, these are triceratopses, no?"

"Oh. Oh, no. Triceratops had three horns – two on the brows and one on the nose. These ones have only brow horns, no nasal one!"

"So, does it make them biceratopses, duoceratopses, some sort of a triceratops ancestor?" Becker wasn't backing down. "What?"

"Eureka! You're right! Zuniceratops!" Connor exclaimed giddily. "A distant triceratops ancestor, I suppose. Early Cretaceous, 110 – 90 MYA."

"Great, now all that we need is to find the time anomaly and we're all set to go," Becker said cheerfully. "Matt, are you ready to lead us now?"

"Sure," Matt replied absent-mindedly, "by the way, Connor – these dinosaurs seem to be happier in a woodland than a grassland, so why are they out here and not in those trees? Becker, you got any more of these sting grenades that you've talked about?"

"Sure, want me to throw one?" Becker asked, almost eagerly (for him, anyways).

"If you can reach it from here – knock yourself out," Matt shrugged in reply.

"Will do," Becker seemed to rise to the challenge. He pulled out a grenade, stepped into a classical (to a lay-person's eyes anyways) throwing poise, prepared to throat and then... whirled around, throwing the missile up at the roof. T

The grenade struck the roof and exploded, spreading rubber pellets into all direction, but the dinosaur had already leapt off of it, landing safely on the ground, beyond the pellets' reach. Then it leapt once again, just as Becker and Matt and others were whirling around, their tasers ready to fire, and landed right behind the people once more, its jaws snapping shut... on Becker's taser that the man used to block the dinosaur's lunge just in the nick of time. The metal groaned, a swarm of sparks shot into the air, and the dinosaur fled, squawking indignantly.

"Raptors. Well, _a_ raptor," Connor muttered despondently, "and there are probably others. Oh, damn."

"Jess," the commlink came to life, startling Jess somewhat, "we might be dealing with raptors inside the golf club's building. Can you hack into the building's security system to check?"

"Already on it," Jess confessed, "only the security system here isn't very extensive, it is covering only several apparent key points, and that is it."

"So? These are raptors, not burglars!"

"And the security system here is designed to deal with the latter, not the former!" Jess shot back. "The raptors aren't particularly interested in the manager's office or-"

"Or?"

"I think I caught something near the fire exit's staircase, some sort of a shadow," Jess confessed. "I'm sending Connor's the building's plans now."

"And we're on it."

The inside of the golf club building everything seemed to be orderly, if one were to ignore the mess left by people fleeing in a hurry. "Okay, the raptors – if they are here – are sticking to the higher ground," Matt said thoughtfully, "Connor, Abby – you've dealt with in the Cretaceous, right?"

"Wrong," Connor admitted, guiltily, "well, half-wrong anyways. The raptors we've dealt before were shorter in height, and their plumage was bluer than this one's. This might be a different species – kind of like that tree creeper creature."

"Or, what Connor's trying to say, we haven't met _this_ species of raptor ever," Abby explained curtly, "so any guesses how it – or they – will behave will most likely be unjustified and possibly wrong, yes."

"Well, they're sticking to higher ground," Becker said thoughtfully, "and to the trees too, I suppose. Don't get why they hadn't tried to make some sort of a pincer movement from here and the trees...maybe they're not smart enough to figure it out..."

"If they're anything like the raptors we met in the Cretaceous...and odds are that they are...they would be," Abby said with finality. "Consequently, the question is – why haven't they?"

"Maybe the time anomaly is there," Connor suggested, "only we're too far from there for my device to make a reading..." he moved absent-mindedly closer to the window only to be knocked by Becker – and in a nick of time as a raptor dove through it, followed closely by the horned herbivore. The raptor's leap carried it right through the window, shattering it in the process, but the horned dinosaur, as it followed the carnivore in a mad rush, got stuck in the widened hole all the same...and wasn't bright enough to realize what had happened, as it continued to bellow challenges to the canny carnivore, even as the latter got onto its own feet and rushed for the doorway.

"After it," Matt shouted to Abby.

They were too late.

Like a red-feathered missile the raptor had tore through the doorway, raced around the building, and literally slammed into the zuniceratops, biting and clawing into its' skin and flesh. The pain and the fear caused the latter to jerk backwards, freeing itself from the hole in the club's wall in which it was stuck, but all was in vain: the raptor drew it foot backwards and stabbed upwards, right into the herbivore's neck. It was over in a blink of an eye – the raptor's talon sank into the zuniceratops' neck completely, and then withdrew, and the zuniceratops collapsed in a fountain of blood.

Slowly, the raptor raised its head upwards, towards the roof and shrieked loudly – and was echoed back. Within moments, another slightly smaller raptor, carrying something in its jaws, jumped and joined the first hunter, and when it released the jaws that something was identified as a raptor juvenile – its partial plumage being yellowish, rather than reddish in hue.

"Well, that settles it," Abby admitted, even as she moved to block Becker's shot (by accident, no doubt). "The raptors we usually saw tended to eat their young, not care for it."

"A different species, for sure," Connor shrugged. "I mean, since we stayed in northern Africa, and these animals seem to come from the western USA, that makes sense. If only we could get tissue samples..."

"And as interesting that might be, Connor, maybe you should start thinking about getting this situation under control. You too, Anderson," Philip Burton said from behind the foursome as he appeared from inside the clubhouse. Then he saw the raptors feeding and blinked. "And this is why I don't generally approve of hosting dinosaurs and prehistoric insects in the Center."

There was a general pause as Connor, Matt and the others digested the appearance of their leader in their midst. "Sir," Matt finally said, trying to sound more differential than his usual approach to Burton, "how did you end up _here_?"

"Came to negotiate a business deal over some golf," Burton shrugged, "and got caught in all the excitement. Got to admit, if this is a regular day for you, then you're all made of sterner staff than the usual person. Anyways, what is the strategy?"

"We need to find the time anomaly first, and with a herd of unpredictable horned dinosaurs on one hand, and overly smart raptor family on the other, it might be a bit tricky," Matt admitted.

"Well, initially they all did come from the trees over there," Burton confessed, "so odds are that that is where they need to go again."

The others looked at each other, except for Becker, who was busy interacting with Jess instead. "Sounds like a plan...or beginnings of one, sir," he admitted, finally. "That said, any of us have ideas as to how to drive the uniceratopses that way?"

"That's _zuniceratopses_ to you, Becker!" Connor snapped, "and no, we don't have a plan!"

"Speak for yourself, Connor, I actually do...or the beginnings of one, rather," Matt spoke up for the first time since Burton had run into them.

"Oh? And what it is?" Connor wasn't backing down without a fight or at least an argument. "Enlighten us, please."

"A stampede."

There was a pause as the others thought it over. "What do you mean, 'a stampede'?" Connor spoke in a voice that implied that he wouldn't like the answer.

"We stampede them in the direction of the time anomaly," Matt explained patiently, "I think I have almost worked out the way how to do it, too."

"I don't like it," Connor replied, grudgingly. "The last time there was a stampede it was the embolotheres... and Helen Cutter of all people had to save our asses..."

"Yes, well, if you can duplicate her feat by manifesting a time anomaly in mid-air, then you're welcome to do it," Becker snapped, and stopped, when he saw the look on Connor's face. "You _can_ do it?"

"I'm going to try," Connor replied, resolve evident in his face. "'Cause the idea of stampede – it's just wrong. Everybody – stand back, all the same." He pulled out the time anomaly sealing device and began to press the sequence of buttons on it. "I'm not quite sure if I'll be able to accomplish it, though."

"Then, Connor, maybe you shouldn't-" Abby began, but Connor didn't listen to her: he finished his sequence, his device whirled, clicked, and flashed...

...and suddenly the ARC field team plus Burton found themselves very definitely not on a golf course, but right in the middle of a thick, prehistoric, broadleaf forest, right alongside the dinosaurs. The herd of the herbivores took one look around, then took a sniff, and fled deeper into the depths sylvan depths. So did the raptors, actually, but in a slightly different direction from the herbivores, and at a much faster speed (the bigger raptor once more carried the juvenile in its jaws).

"Er, what's going on here?" Connor blinked. "And, uh, do I smell smoke?"

"We can see it," Becker said slowly, looking at the shadows dancing beneath the trees and moving rapidly towards them, "and flames too. Connor, we're standing in the path of a forest fire – get us out now!"

"I'm trying," Connor said desperately, pressing a new sequence of buttons, and with a pop the five people abruptly found themselves not in early Cretaceous North America as before, but back in the modern England, right back where they've started, on the golf course.

And the raptors were back, having emerged from the trees. They did look exhausted (even the juvenile), but they were raptors. And then-

"Guys!" Jess' desperate cry tore over their eardrums. "Where are you?"

"Jess, we're here," Matt said with a grimace, "and Mr. Burton's with us as well, so can you please tone your excitement just a _little_?"

"Sorry, you guys," Jess continued to babble, almost desperately, "it's just that you were gone, and the time anomaly's gone, and-"

"Wait, the time anomaly's gone?" Matt said, slowly.

"Yes!" Jess said firmly. "Wait, you didn't close it?"

"Um, we did, but in a different way from before," Matt replied, carefully, "hence why we couldn't respond to you earlier. Sorry about that, by the way. Kinks need to be worked out of a new method – a lot of them."

"Oh. Good. Um, did you say Mr. Burton is there with you?"

"Yes, so can you send some back-up, please?" Becker spoke carefully for the first time since their impromptu though brief trip to the Cretaceous. "Like... four minutes ago?"

"Already have," Jess actually managed to sound huffy for once. "Believe it!"

And Jess had. Very quickly the helicopters had descended, bringing back-up, which was no longer required, as the dinosaurs were either gone, or too tired to put much of a fight. "Well, all ends well that ends well," Becker said, clearly relieved to see it all being over. "Connor, you going to send the raptors back or what?"

"Later, back at the labs to ensure they don't get sent back to the forest fire," Connor said serenely. "That is if Michael Gallo allows me to-"

Connor didn't finish. As Becker's subordinate began to haul the tranquilized raptor family away, a heavy foot slammed down through the trees, and several tons of enraged behemoth began to rapidly approach them, looking rather pissed.

"Connor, honey, what is that thing?" Abby squeaked, as a bipedal dinosaur looking like a cross between a turkey and a giant sloth, almost funny except for those giant claws on its forelimbs. And it was tall, far, far taller than the raptors or even the horned dinosaurs. "What is it?"

"A segnosaur!" Connor sounded raptured by sight. "I never thought I see one alive _or_ dead. Wow!"

"Is it dangerous?" Becker muttered quietly.

"It's – it's a giant herbivorous cousin of the raptors," Connor admitted, "and it looks to be rather possessive and territorial, but, anyways," he turned to Abby, "now that I've actually _seen_ it, there's only one thing left to do – Abby Maitland, would you marry me?"

There was a pause as everyone just stared at the couple, and then Abby did the unexpected – she sort of froze, blinked a couple of times, and fainted. This, however, was somewhat overshadowed by the segnosaur, as it abruptly collapsed with a crash.

"I, I didn't do that," Connor muttered, lamely.

"I know," Burton nodded in agreement even as he handed the tranquilizer gun to the young man, "I did. And by the way, if you two do get married, can I sing at your wedding? I always wanted to sing at a wedding, you know?"

Connor blinked and just nodded in agreement.

"Our hero," Matt wryly whispered to Becker, who just nodded, his eyes narrowed deep in thought.

_To be continued..._


End file.
